Sunday, June 6, 2010

It hard not to get frustrated at BP's handling of the Gulf oil disaster, when even basic questions like "where is the oil going?," cannot be answered.

But wait, there could be an answer if only someone would think out of the box - behold this nifty gizmo here.

It's a satellite tag used to track wildlife, like sharks, turtles, tuna. Every time the antenna breaks the surface waiting satellites download position data. It also floats 24/7 when not attached to a critter.

What if BP bought 10,000 of these and dropped them into the major parts of the slick?

Well then you would have a real-time understanding of where the oil was spreading and where it was going, instead of headlines like these that just make you want to break something in frustration.

If we can track a single Bluefin tuna clear across the Atlantic ocean, surely we can real-time a major oil disaster?

Hong Kong's Sharkfin and Marine Products Association says there are no whale shark fins on display in Hong Kong (Rhincodontypus).

But Brad Norman says otherwise using images from a recent expedition to capture the imagination and the bandwidth of the media.

Herald Sun

The fins of the gentle giants, the same species that delights snorkellers off Western Australia's Ningaloo Reef every autumn, are sold for $300 each and used as window displays in shark fin shops in Hong Kong's Sheung Wan market district.

The Sunday Herald Sun last week joined an expedition to the Chinese territory to expose the trade in the world's biggest fish, which is listed as vulnerable to extinction by the World Conservation Union.